


Every Shining Thing

by shell_and_bone



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Headcanon, Holding Hands, Introspection, Kissing, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Philosophy, Religious Discussion, Season/Series 05, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2716586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shell_and_bone/pseuds/shell_and_bone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Godless</i>, his people called the Centauri while they ravaged Narn into a lifeless husk. <i>Not so</i>, was their prepared response on such matters, <i>we have more gods than any of you</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Shining Thing

**Author's Note:**

> "I thought you were supposed to be protecting me, looking out for my best interests."
> 
> "I am. The warrior in me is watching out for your life, but the Narn in me has decided that it is your spirit that's in the greatest need of protection."
> 
> -Babylon 5, S05E12 (The Ragged Edge).

Londo did not sleep well under the best of circumstances. G’Kar remembered the few nights they spent together on Babylon 5, the sheets churning like a tide as Londo tossed back and forth. G’Kar should not have expected the man to rest any easier on the Centauri homeworld, especially not tonight, but after an eventful afternoon of pursuing audience with the Regent, prying information out of court functionaries, and narrowly escaping assassination, he’d dared to hope that Londo might simply collapse out of sheer exhaustion.

That was not to be. G’Kar could have ignored him in favour of a few hours rest himself, had his duty as Londo’s protector not become a matter of principle. To allow himself to sleep while his charge lay awake, seeing faces in every shadow, knives in every sliver of moonlight, would be dangerously irresponsible. G’Kar had almost lost him once tonight. He would not make the same mistake again.

G’Kar would have liked to sleep beside him tonight, if only to have him constantly in his line of sight, a weight in his arms. From the makeshift couch they’d set up at the foot of the bed, G’Kar could only rely on Londo’s voice to know he was there as he confessed his worries about the allocation of military resources, the excess weapon production, and the disturbing illness of the Regent. Of his meeting with the Regent, Londo refused to speak, even in the privacy of the guest bedroom. Surveillance devices, he’d insisted, could be hidden anywhere. Together, they’d searched every corner of the room, his hands at Londo’s waist as he balanced on a chair to check the light fixtures for signs of intrusion. They had found nothing, but Londo remained unconvinced. Thus, the silence. And the couch. A goodnight kiss was out of the question.

The first time Londo got up, G’Kar pretended not to notice. It felt like the kindest thing to do. With his eyes half-closed, he watched Londo pace to the door, listening for voices, real or imagined. He tilted his head toward the noise and winced at a painful thump and hiss of breath as Londo fumbled around the darkened room. To G’Kar’s relief, he returned to bed after a brief stop at the bathroom, where G’Kar could hear nothing but a rush of water from the sink and something that sounded like a sob.

Londo caught him the second time, an hour or so later, when he rose again to stand by the window. He just about jumped out of his skin when he scanned the room and unwittingly met G’Kar’s gaze.

“Sleeping with one eye open, are we?” Londo said after a moment’s recovery. His voice was even, but one hand lingered at the center of his chest.

G’Kar had only himself to blame for staring so obviously, but he wasn’t about to admit to being enraptured by the moonlit silhouette of a rumpled Centauri in a lace-frilled nightgown.

“Aren’t I always?” G’Kar reached down to fetch his prosthetic eye, wrapped in a cloth coated with anti-bacterial salve. He turned it on and playfully extended it towards Londo with his remaining eye clenched shut.

“That’s disgusting.” Londo paid no attention to the device, but scowled into G’Kar’s empty socket. “Either put that away and go back to sleep, or put it back in your skull and come sit with me, I don’t care.”

To the contrary, G’Kar recognized Londo’s tone as the one that meant he did care very much, and would spend the next day inconsolably irritable unless G’Kar set everything aside to indirectly tend to his wellbeing without letting on too overtly that he was doing so, or else be accused of insincerity of some form or another. Normally it was infuriating, but tonight G’Kar welcomed the invitation.

Tastefully, G’Kar turned away to insert his miscoloured prosthetic while Londo poured himself a drink.

“Remind me again which transport we’re catching tomorrow?” G’Kar asked as he sat down, though he already knew the answer.

Londo rubbed at his eyes. “The first one.”

G’Kar offered a grunt of assent. Nights were short on Centauri Prime, and he estimated there remained only a few hours left of darkness before the early morning transports would leave the planet. It might be pleasant if Londo slept through their return journey; he could get a few hours of writing in, provided he managed to stay conscious in the seat beside him.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t stay for a full month,” G’Kar said, drumming his fingers on the windowsill. “If only to leave a greater impression on the fine members of your royal court.” He shot Londo a sly grin. “Like the woman making eyes at me in the throne room, did you see? Red gown, sultry eyes, lips like—“

“I’d say you made a big enough impression for the both of us, G’Kar,” Londo said, cutting him off. He did not elaborate, and instead sat quietly in his chair, eyes glazed over as if in deep meditation.

One of the few things he and Londo shared in common was a taste in women, and with that, G’Kar had exhausted their reserve of comfortable conversation topics. Not that he wasn’t perfectly content to let Londo drown himself in brivari and self pity, but he would not give in to a demand to participate, even when softly whispered.

To pass the silence, G’Kar stared out the window, over the towers and balconies of the palace to the clear night sky. The stars themselves were much the same as the view from Babylon 5’s many observation domes — different arrangements, of course, and faded by atmosphere — but there was something distinctly comforting about the sky of a world, a shared canvas for its inhabitants to trace their triumphs and fears in the hopes of making sense of their lives. “Your world has two moons,” he observed.

Londo’s eyes didn’t lift from his glass. “You never noticed that before?”

“No, unfortunately your underground prison cells do not offer much of a view,” G’Kar said. He glanced around to admire the rich green wallpaper of the guest room, its carved furnishings, and the fall of curtains over Londo’s bed. “This one is far more comfortable,” he added with a smile. Londo frowned towards the door, safely locked until tomorrow when they could make an unobtrusive escape back to Babylon 5. Forced seclusion was not the same as imprisonment, of course, but he only meant to lighten the mood. If it were up to G’Kar, he would have barricaded them inside, but for some unfathomable reason, Londo insisted on maintaining the palace’s facade of normalcy.

“Two moons is hardly impressive,” Londo said, ignoring G’Kar’s remark on their current situation. “Agrius has twenty-six.”

“Agrius?” G’Kar asked. “Is that one of your colony worlds?” Not that he wished to speak of Centauri colony worlds, but Londo did not sound like he was bragging. That made a difference, that, and how he at least had the decency to look abashed when G’Kar mentioned it.

“No, Agrius is one of the gas giants in the outer orbit of the Centauri system. A great big yellow ball. It looks like one of those watsui fruits you liked so much at dinner,” Londo explained reluctantly, as if it surprised him that G’Kar would not be familiar with his world’s celestial geography. “I’m told it’s a sight to behold up close. Fodder for tourists, I suppose,” he went on, eager now to speak of anything that did not concern the events of the past day and whatever he was planning to do about it. “The planet itself had little to offer us by way of resources, but we mined what we could of its moons a long time ago.”

“All twenty-six of them,” G’Kar finished, having expected nothing less. One could always trust a Centauri to reduce all beauty and wonder in the universe to a shopping-list of compounds, he could have pointed out, but he didn’t wish to contribute to Londo’s general malaise. Not if he wanted an hour of sleep tonight. Instead, he shifted the subject back to the moons. “Who are they? What are their names?” he asked, adjusting the curtains that obscured their view.

Londo raised an eyebrow, suspicious now that G’Kar’s questions were about to lead somewhere unpleasant. G’Kar could only smile in return, at once an affirmation of interest and an invitation to continue. “The bigger, brighter one is Elicia, and the faint one is Vedia,” he said at last. “I don’t know what else you want me to tell you. I conduct peace-talks, not planetary surveys. Go ask one of our scientists.” He took another drink.

“You misunderstand, Mollari. I don’t care to know their precise mass or tidal forces. They have names, therefore I must assume they have occupied some role in your culture of belief at one point or another. So I ask again, who are they?” he persisted, though G’Kar wasn’t quite sure what possessed him.

 _Godless_ , his people called the Centauri while they ravaged Narn into a lifeless husk. _Not so_ , was their prepared response on such matters, _we have more gods than any of you._ Gods celebrated through images rather than teachings, with faces as welcome in souvenir shops as they were in temples, gods who did not care whether you believed in them or not. G’Kar did not think Londo believed in anything. A part of him wanted to know for certain.

“In that case, you would do better to ask Vir. For some reason, he’s had a more extensive education in that sort of nonsense than I ever did. But if you insist,” he said, then took a long drink to wet his throat for what was sure to be a long-winded explanation, if perhaps lacking in reverence.

“Before the earliest days of the Republic, Elicia and Vedia were said to be goddesses. Twin Empresses of the heavens they were called in the old histories, mothers of Agrius, Zephon, and just about any other shining thing in the sky we cared to name,” Londo said, slowly reclining back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. “Of course, there were not always two of them. Elicia came first, companion goddess to the sun, Reius, from whom all other gods in the heavenly pantheon originate.”

G’Kar broke in. “Then it is this Reius whom you refer to as the Great Maker?”

Londo rolled his eyes, leaning forward again to squeeze the stem of his glass. “Ah, if only it were that simple! Just thinking about how we managed to reconcile the Maker alongside our original and extended pantheons is enough to make your brain leak out from your ears,” he said with a twisted grimace. “No, the Maker was something we added later, once we were out among the stars. It started as a way to placate some of the other races we encountered, too good to associate with ‘pagans’, even in matters of trade.” Londo shrugged his shoulders, a smile sneaking across his face. “Who would have guessed it would actually catch on after a century or two, hm?” He almost laughed, but stopped when G’Kar did not share in the humour.

“Not an uncommon occurrence,” G’Kar pointed out. “I’ve heard that many races, upon achieving space-travel, adjust their theological doctrines to account for the existence of alien souls as noble as their own. It may well be a part of our collective evolution, much like the revelation that one’s homeworld is not the centre of the universe.” He turned to face the window, glancing at Londo out of the corner of his eye. “It’s a pity your people never got that far.”

Londo responded by driving the heel of his foot against G’Kar’s ankle. G’Kar flinched and drew back. “You asked, G’Kar! Now, do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?” Londo pressed, more frustrated than actually offended.

“Ah, very well. Go on.” G’Kar wanted to sound confident, hiding how much the notion made his spine stiffen. The idea of an entire population sustaining a single faith was difficult enough to comprehend, but religious intolerance was nearly unheard of among Narns. Ever since the days of G’Quan, the practitioners of various religions had coexisted peacefully, exposing their children to every path, leaving them free to follow whichever they chose, or none at all. It was the Centauri who taught them that faith, too, could be an instrument of violence — as well as a means of resistance.

“As I was saying, Elicia came first, with Reius, her creator and husband, as her only companion in the heavens. As the eons passed, she became bored and lonesome, gazing down at her own image reflected in the oceans of Centauri Prime. Reius, in the hope of pleasing his wife, cast his rays to the waters and created for her a sister, Vedia, out of her mirrored image. That’s why she is fainter, you see, because despite her majesty, she was once merely a reflection, pale and insubstantial.”

“Even gods yearn for companionship, in your stories,” he observed, unsure of what to make of that. “I trust all were happy with that arrangement, then?”

“Of course. Elicia now had a sister to confide in and Reius got himself a second wife out of the deal. I’d call it a success on all sides, yes?” Londo stopped, and then remembered an additional detail. “That is why… how do the Earthers call it — an ‘eclipse’? That is considered a good omen. Whenever Reius crosses paths with one of his wives? Another star is born,” he concluded with a wholly unnecessary gesture to his chest, as if G’Kar’s mind were any less prurient than his own.

“Do all three ever line up? What happens then?” G’Kar asked, though he was getting a general idea.

Londo nodded emphatically. “Oh yes. Very rarely. The only recorded instance was after the end of our war with the Xon. They say that the period following the War of Twenty Million Deaths could be aptly named the Years of Twenty Million Births. Since then, the double-eclipse has been regarded as a symbol of fertility,” he explained, then looked to G’Kar again. “Well, Emperor Tuscano’s mandate that the largest families would be granted lands, money, and titles might have had something to do with it, but people will believe what they like.”

With a breathy laugh, G’Kar said, “Of that, at least we can agree.” A toast seemed appropriate, but brivari had little effect on Narn physiology, and Londo’s nerves needed calming more than G’Kar needed the validation.

He could have ended it there, let Londo finish the rest of his drink in peace and hope that might dull his paranoia enough for both of them to return to bed. Curiously, though, G’Kar found himself wide awake and wanting to hear more, every answer spurring a dozen new questions. From whence did their world arise? How did sentient life manage to spring from the union of heavenly bodies? By what authority did the Centauri gods impart moral recommendations when they themselves fell prey to mortal shortcomings? Under the table, G’Kar’s knees jittered with invigoration and he had to suppress the urge to pace.

“You mentioned before that Vedia was created out of the oceans of your world,” he began carefully, afraid to twist Londo’s words on the off chance they carried some sacred significance. “Did your world exist prior to your sun, or did Reius bring it, too, into being?”

Londo tilted his head for a moment before he understood what G’Kar meant. “A ridiculous question. The gods do not simply _conjure_ things into and out of existence with the snap of a finger. That would be absurd. No, the world, the universe, everything, existed prior to the gods — just not _as_ such. There is a word in our language for the way in which the gods imbue the world with their essence, one that resists all attempts at translation. So you see, any explanation I could give would be pointless, no?”

Once again, it seemed Londo had forgotten that G’Kar spoke fluent Centauri, though he would not resort to using it, not even in the pursuit of mutual understanding. He chose another tactic. “Maybe so, but there are always some similarities. Dr. Franklin once told me that his religion involves seeking out the threads of commonality that run through various alien belief systems. What you said reminds me of a book Commander Sinclair once lent me by an ancient Earth writer…”

Londo made a noise halfway between a scoff and a sigh. “Taking spiritual advice from an Earther is as worthless as discussing politics with a Drazi. They have so many opposing beliefs, it’s astonishing that they haven’t torn themselves to pieces over it.”

“Oh, this was entirely too dry and abstract to be a holy text,” G’Kar clarified. “But in the book, the author writes that to explain how one thing causes another, we can speak in four different ways: in terms of _what_ it is made of, in terms of what _brought_ it into existence, in terms of the _form_ or the characteristics it has, or, in terms of its _purpose_. Though they’re often combined in conversation, the difference is—"

“The last two!” Londo blurted out. “That is what the word means! Or, at least it comes very close. The world is part of the matter of the universe, which is eternal, but it is the gods who shape it according to their whims.” He lowered his voice surreptitiously, but for a brief moment G’Kar could have sworn he heard the exalted strains of epiphany.

A warmth filled G’Kar’s chest, and he was suddenly struck with the impulse to leap across the table and kiss away the awe from the man’s delicately parted lips. He settled for clasping his hands under the table, instead. “You see? That was not so difficult.” Londo’s palms were strangely clammy.

Without looking directly at G’Kar, Londo held his hands with quiet intensity for a long moment. “There is another story I want to tell you. I am interested to know what you make of it.”

G’Kar’s gaze flicked from the bed, to the window, and then settled back on Londo. A shadow of a smile played on his lips. His hands tensed in G’Kar’s, then he let go, leaving a sheen of anxious perspiration.

For once, G’Kar did not know what to expect. His head still swimming with the exhilaration that came with talk of the absolute, he’d lost track of the effect this was having on Londo. “Yes. Please tell me.”

Londo took a deep breath. “While it is true that in the early myths, the waters of Centauri Prime were considered inert, there is one notable exception. One day, without the help or permission of the heavenly pantheon, a being emerged fully formed from the ocean — Li.”

G’Kar nodded in recognition. “Your goddess of passion, correct? We’re off to a good start.”

“Passion, love, yes, but much more than that. You see, Li was not one mere goddess among many; she was unique, possessed of both male and female attributes and thus closer to perfection than any of the heavenly bodies,” he said, wiping his hands across the lap of his robe. “Naturally, that did not go over well with Reius and his wives, jealous creatures they were. When she ascended to the throne of heaven to present herself before the celestial court, Li was ambushed by Elicia and Vedia. Reius looked on in approval as they mutilated Li, tore off her brachiarti one by one and tossed them back into the waters of Centauri Prime.”

Londo paused for emphasis and crossed his arms. G’Kar winced in sympathy. “I take back what I said. Don’t tell me these are the tales you recite to your children?”

He gave a solemn nod. “Yes, nasty business, isn’t it? I will remind you this is a very old story. I did not come up with it."

“Still, I’m beginning to see the inspiration behind Cartagia’s style of leadership,” G’Kar said, hoping to elicit a chuckle, but instead, Londo appeared genuinely wounded. Hurt and anger ran together in Londo; learning to tell them apart was one of the most valuable lessons G’Kar had learned in all their years together. Ripe for mockery as these stories were, something in them clearly held meaning for Londo and G’Kar was determined to find out what it was.

“Nevermind, Mollari. I’ll be quiet. I would like to hear how it ends,” he offered with a conciliatory smile.

The darkness lingered in his features, but Londo unclenched his jaw and resumed. “Li survived. You cannot kill a goddess, after all. When she awoke, broken and humiliated, she despaired and descended back to the ocean in search of her missing parts.”

Londo shifted in his chair, and reached again for his glass only to find it empty. G’Kar was only too happy to push the bottle across the table for a refill.

As the last drops of brivari drained into his glass, Londo continued. “Upon her return, Li was astounded at what she found. Where once there lay only a bottomless ocean, barren and sterile, sprung reefs, islands, entire continents. Lush green jungles of life under the water and sprawling across the land,” he said, gesturing with his glass out the window to the fields surrounding the capitol, where the rising dawn glowed over the hills.

“Li took in what she could of these wonders, delighted by all she saw. For wherever one of her brachiarti had fallen, gardens and creatures now flourished. Even when Li reattached her severed limbs, she sustained her creations on love alone, ushering in the age of eternal life. Out of the bounty of creatures that had sprung from her pieces, her favourites were the ones who appeared in the gods’ own image — these, she named Centauri, and on us alone she granted souls.”

“How, exactly, goes one grant a soul?” G’Kar asked, as the notion seemed counterintuitive. For Narns, every creature touched by their sun’s red rays possessed a soul, however small. Londo shrugged. Either he didn’t know, or it didn’t matter.

“The point is,” he went on, “that Li had created a paradise for us, where we ate, drank, made love, and never died.”

“Then how were you any different from the gods?” G’Kar whispered.

“That was exactly what Reius and the celestial pantheon thought when they learned of what Li had done,” Londo replied, gaze fixed on the drink swirling in his glass, mouth twisted into a rueful grimace.

“Did they punish her?”

“They punished us, G’Kar.”

The way his voice broke then, G’Kar might have thought the alcohol had gone to his head, but when Londo glanced up, G’Kar found himself the target of a pair of uncomfortably lucid blue eyes brimming with loss and accusation. At once, he understood why Londo wanted him, of all people, to hear this story, now of all times.

G’Quan help him, he was not prepared for this.

Imploring, G’Kar moved to take Londo’s hands again, but both were otherwise occupied, one wrapped tightly around his glass, the other balled in his nightgown. “Mollari, I—“

“It wasn’t enough, no, for us to grow old and perish like the rest,” he said, lips trembling, distorting his speech, “to pass our lives in blissful ignorance up until the end. To punish Li for the crime of unnatural creation, we alone bore the burden…”

In glimpses and dreams, G’Kar dimly recalled, from his reading and the fragmented memories of the time he spent in Londo’s mind in drug-fueled madness. Out of shame, horror, and his own desperate need to believe in a brighter future, G’Kar could never bring himself to revisit them, but the vision resurfaced all the same, just as it did for Londo on these sleepless nights. It must have, G'Kar realized. Why else would Londo have chosen to bring this up now? Right when G'Kar had begun to think they might finally have overcome such deliberate cruelties.

G’Kar reached out, more for himself than for Londo, stroking the hand that now shook too violently to raise the glass to his lips. “Please don’t. Listen to me, Mollari,” he began, only to lose the thought when he noticed wetness on Londo’s cheeks. Blinking frantically, Londo wiped his eyes on the lace of his sleeve, then wrenched himself from G’Kar with such force that the brivari spilled anyway, soaking the table as he stormed heedlessly towards the bed.

Though his first instinct was to follow, G’Kar granted Londo the distance he needed. Both of them, by now, could use a little breathing room. He doubted Londo would appreciate the metaphor.

“They could have at least used poison.” The distance of a few steps made Londo’s voice sound hollow and far away, as if he was, once more, lost and afraid in some forgotten corridor of the palace.

G’Kar gently leaned over the chair. No sudden movements. “Who could have?”

“Whoever murdered Lord Jano,” he muttered, bent in on himself at the edge of the bed, partly veiled behind the curtains. “It’s the only civilized way to go about it, Great Maker, it was once written into our _laws_. To keep the peace, to put an end to the vendettas, the cycles of revenge, the knowledge that one day the person you trust the most will inevitably wedge his knife in your back.” Londo sucked down a shuddering gasp of air, then looked to G’Kar. “Do you understand us any better now, G’Kar? This is what you wanted to hear, no?”

 _They are to be pitied_ , G’Kar had argued in the ruins of Cartagia’s throne room, urging the Narns against the temptation to retaliate, against following the Centauri’s example. _A lost people_ , he’d screamed, and it echoed in his mind now as he hung, helpless, on Londo’s every word, barely registering the sound of his name against the onslaught. How could it be that only minutes ago, he’d felt that unmistakable spark of connection? A shared striving that, for one shining moment, transcended the gulf between their species and their history. Now that gulf spread open like the mouth of an abyss and G’Kar felt like he was drowning.

He didn’t want to hear any more, but Londo rambled on.

“He must have known. Jano and I… we’d never spoken of this before. We Centauri often do these things, you know. Reminisce upon our fates, comparing, lamenting, boasting—”

“It’s not your fault, Mollari!” G’Kar shouted, his fist crashing against the table. The words left a strange aftertaste in his mouth, but they achieved their intended purpose. Londo fell silent, enough for G’Kar to gather his thoughts.

Whatever Jano had meant to Londo, G’Kar had met the man all but twice. First, as the fellow nobleman he’d let into Londo’s room so the two of them could speak in confidence, and shortly thereafter, as a corpse hanging from the ceiling. Maybe he could help if Londo would have provided even a shred of insight into the identity of the perpetrators, the condition of the Regent, or whatever other vicious atrocities were taking shape on this godforsaken world.

But if there was one thing G’Kar did understand, it was the loss of a friend.

Still reeling, G’Kar raised himself from the table to approach the stricken Centauri. He knelt at his feet. The gentle pressure of G’Kar’s hands on Londo’s thighs must have grounded the man because something softened in his face, eyes wide open and vulnerable, for once, to whatever solace G’Kar had to offer.

“Never in my life, Mollari, did I think I’d be saying this to you. Pay close attention, because I will likely never have cause to say it again. But… no matter what has happened here, to your government, your military, to your friend. You are not to blame for it,” G’Kar assured him. “Of this, I am certain.”

Londo opened his mouth to protest, but it seemed now that both his words and his tears had run dry. He linked his arms behind G’Kar’s shoulders. The acknowledgement came with a sudden stillness as his muscles went slack. He glanced over G’Kar’s shoulder to the last shades of darkness that hung in the sky.

The gesture not entirely lost on him, G’Kar murmured, “You must believe me, Mollari. Even if you can no longer trust in the will of your gods, you must trust in _me_ now,” with his lips pressed to Londo’s throat, then his jawline, the corner of his mouth.

It was Londo who closed the distance. G’Kar felt a sharp pinch of teeth at his lips, his mouth flooded with the overwhelming taste of brivari. It was too much. He tried to break away, but Londo’s hands scrambled over his back, tugged at his clothing. Londo only let go, let him draw breath, after he’d dragged G’Kar on top of him over the sheets.

“How can I trust you, G’Kar? How can I, when…” He coughed, and G’Kar rolled to one side to ease the pressure on his chest.

“Perhaps I am the only thing you can trust,” G’Kar replied, laying a kiss to his temple. “Whatever the future holds, neither of us will survive one another. Certainty can be a comfort as much as it is a terror.” Possessively, he stroked Londo’s neck. “However this ends, I will be at your side." 

"Where you go, I go.”

He couldn’t say why the words sounded so much like a blessing. Or why the shrill, bitter laughter that followed felt like the most appropriate response.


End file.
